8 healthy hens, but only 1 egg per day total?

[RobPS]

I will have to look that one up!

 

[asudavew]

Awesome that they are laying! Where are you located? I'm in West Texas and none of my birds have laid an egg in several months. Hoping for spring eggs soon.

 

[RobPS]

I'm in Michigan. Since my last post, my hens stopped laying almost entirely. I did catch a coupe of them eating an egg almost immediately after it came out of one of the birds --now I fear they have a taste for egg protein and will simply be live egg recyclers. I put in a couple of fake eggs (chicken size) in an attempt to dissuade it, but nowadays I get either no eggs or just maybe 1 if I'm lucky enough to grab it quickly.

 

[asudavew]

From what I have read they don't usually lay in the winter due to the shorter photo period. I was surprised you had some laying being located so far north. I thought maybe you were in south Florida.

 

[RobPS]

Well, I can't explain it. I was getting multiple eggs per day with no artificial light except for a thermostat controlled red heat lamp. Now I'm down to 0-1 per day.

My latest batch is going to hard boil tonight. Notice the odd-ball white one???

 

[geniash]

At 8 weeks old quails are going through the molt and will stop laying. They go through molt couple times a year. Give them time to adjust and they will be back on track in no time.

 

[KeithKZ]

I live in Michigan as well and had jumbo brown coturnix last year. While we had way above normal temps last week, it has cooled down here the past several days plus all of the cloud cover taking it longer to get light in the morning and then getting darker earlier in the evening. You can speed up the egg laying process by purchasing a full spectrum LED light and putting it in the pen with them. Set a timer to come on a couple of hours before sunrise and a couple hours after sunset. They need about 16 hours of 'daylight' for optimum egg laying. I know this works because I did it last fall after they had stopped laying for the season. After about 10 days of the LED light they started back up again.

Keith

 

[ZedR]

Yeah my girls vary too. I would recommend keeping a journal. I have 32... some boys... but I range from 18 - 28 a day. That's with a timed light supply! So I started keeping the journal and every day I record the date, how many eggs and the high and low temp. Like I said, my light supply doesn't vary. After doing this I've found I average 20 eggs (plus or minus) a day. Plus.. it's kinda fund to keep the journal. ;-)

Good luck!

 

[RobPS]

Thanks for the tip about molting at 8 weeks Geniash, and the journal idea Zed! I had read about the light idea Keith, and I may resort to that at some point. I was just puzzled how I went from 1 egg/day, to 2, then 4, and then 8....only to drop back down to 1 again. All within a few of weeks. Lots of factors I suppose.

 

[grannyjen]

I have struggled with my quails but ended up with one female and two males, as one male killed one of them. I separated them but put them beside each other. The female has been laying an egg a day for weeks but is now laying eggs without shells. They get turkey grower meal worms and crushed oyster shell what is going on?